Other Arts & Review

the Other Press

February 4, 1992

 

The Martin Chronicles: Movie Maniac

 

Martin Scorsese directs some of Americas’ darker Hollywood movies.His
latest is Cape Fear, starring Robert De Niro.

 

By Goerge Kaplan

 

As the brown sedan
ramblesunder New Yorkstreetlights,
a gunman leans out of the rear
window, kisses hisrevolver,and then
pumps bullets into a blue hardtop.
The victim’s car skids out of control
and crashesintoa fire hydrant, blood
pouring from Johnny Boy (Robert
DeNiro)and Charlie (Harvey Keitel).
Back in the sedan, tranquil after the
bloodletting, the demon relaxes and
slides into darkness.

Twoyearsafterthemayhem
of Mean Streets, the demon is in the
back seat again. In Taxi Driver, his
voice gushes with barely contained
rage as he tells the cabbie (De Niro
again) thathis own wife is having sex
with a black man in an adjacent
tenement.

“And, and I’m going to kill
her, and what do you think about
that?” he seethes.

The cameo assassin, who
also played gangsters in Who's That
Knocking at My Door? and
Cannonball (although he turned
down the role of Charles Manson in

Metal with a
Message

Basically, Stop Violence and Madness, by Rumble Militia,
is typical thrash-metal. An exception is “You're Sure.” Were
they thinking potential top-ten hit for this one? Well, it might
have worked, if not for the obvious rip-off intro and bass solo
and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,”
singer's inability to carry a tune in the
proverbial bucket (you know, theonethatdear Lizastill couldn't
fix after nine verses). Here is one exception to the rule that good
musicians steal. But, as everyone knows, you don’t have to be
agood musician toplay thrash-metal.Stop Violenceand Madness

(from “Wild ee
respectively), and

Stop Violence and Madness
Rumble Militia

Released by Century Media
Reviewed by Karen Rempel

Helter Skelter) is Martin Scorsese.
Precisely why, the acclaimed and
controversial director hascasthimself
as killers and makes films about
misanthropy and violence may best
be left for an analyst. Then again, if
the adolescent days of David Lynch
spent loitering around a smalltown
mortuary help explain Blue Velvet
and Wild at Heart, let’s take a look at
Scorsese's formative years.

Scorsese was born on Nov.
17,1942in Flushing, Queens tosecond
generation Italian-Americans
Charles and Catherine (dad later
getting a few cameos, mom gaining
fame as the grey-haired lady in
GoodFellas, Mean Streets and King
of Comedy). And while Martin’s
friends played in the streets of Little
Italy, with toughs lurking around
every corner, asthma often forced
him tostay inside and alone. Cooped
up, he spent hours watching
gangsters, gladiators and monsters
and local movie houses. Scorsese
became obsessed with cinema, and
created hisowncrayoned storyboards
with the credit: Directed by Martin
Scorsese. He was also obsessed with

 

Hacki, Staffi, and Olli (are these your real names,

guys?), the musicians who comprise Rumble Militia, appear to
be East-European metal-meisters transported to Los Angeles,
who magically managed to survive the tri
intact. Yes, they havea message. Several, in fact. You A Reflection
of Your Video—Programme warns real lifeis nota video; if you kill
someone, you can't rewind the tape and make the dead come
fe. Stop This Shit argues against experimentation on
animals. Save Yourself tells anyone who will listen that war is
bad. Waiting For Deathis a dirge about the useless
people waste their life on. As for the title track— you figure it out.

back to li

with their morals

pursuits most

Biblical storiesofthe CatholicChurch
(which bequeathed sexual guilt, an
obsession with guilt and sin, and an
abandoned stint of studying for the
priesthood).

Time on the streets also

played its part.
“Mhere were some tough

guys around. You might be playing
in a sandbox and something might
fallbehind you—notabag of Ze,
as you might expect, buta little baby
that had fallen off a roof,” Scorsese
once recalled.

For a kid, it was a lonely
and brooding lifestyle that led to
resentmentand depresession. For the
older NYU film student, it proved
inspirational. Theresults wouldshow
years later when critic-gods Gene
Siskel and Roger Ebert produced a
special on directors. One each
travelled tocorner George Lucas and
Steven Spielberg, but both were
present to interview Scorsese (after
declaring his Raging Bull to be the
best movie of the 1980s). Scorsese’s
films are perme! honest looks
into the darker side of human
experience. At times his obsession
with never compromising in studies
of violence and darkness can lead to
excess (witness Cape Fear), but on
the wholethatis why his workstands
out ina usually saccharine industry.

And now a Psych 100 look
atthe manand his movies: Outsider.
Except for GoodFellas self-assured
Henry Hill, Scorsese’s characters are
out-of-place, often loners; people
groping foracceptanceor inner peace.
Charliein Mean Streets, Paul Hackett
in After Hours, Travis Bickle in Taxi
Driver, Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull,
Alice in Alice Doesn’t Live Here
Anymore, and even the anguished
prophet of The Last Temptation of
Christ.

New York. Scorsese works
best in the home element he knows.
If budgets preclude costly Gotham,
only a gritty US city will do, suchas
Chicago in Color of Money. “We
wereasked toshootin Toronto, which
is a wonderful city,” said Scorsese,
“but much too clean.”

Music/Musicians: As
evidenced by the oldies sound
montage throughout GoodFellas,
Scorsese soundtracks leanheavily on
Motown Atlantic soul, the Stones
and Clapton. An exception was the
dark jazzy score of Taxi Driver,
completed by Hitchcock-collaborator
Bernard Herrmann shortly before his
death (Herrmann’s themes were

revised for Cape Fear).

Scorsese was one of the
editors of Woodstock and directed
The Band’s swan song, The Last
Waltz, and the video for Robbie
Robertson’s Somewhere Down the
Crazy River. Robertson, who once
shared a house with the director,
produced soundtracks for Color of
Moneyand King of Comedy. Scorsese
directed Michael Jackson's Bad video,
used Dylan’s “20 years of schooling
and they put you on the dayshift” in
Mean Street's screenplay and Kris
Kristofferson’s The Silver-Tongued
Devil in Taxi Driver. He cast David
Bowie as Pilate as Last Temptation
and Kristofferson in Alice.

Troubled Relationships.
Relationships in Scorsese’s films are
awkward, stormy and socially
restricted. In hisscreenplay for 1963's
What's a Nice Girl like You doing in
a Place like This?, a man deserts his
wife and disappears inside a picture.
Hmmmm. ice Harvey Keitel
wanted women socially forbidden to
him; an epiletic and also a black
woman in Mean Streets and an
educated outsider in Who's That...?
DeNirodumpsLiza MinnelliinNew
York, New York, then blows a date
with Cybill Shepherd by taking her

to a XXX movie in Taxi Driver.
Straight-laced Paul falls forafter-dark
typesin After Hours. The topper was
De Niro as insanely jealous Jake
LaMotta, pulverizing his loyal
brother over a sarcastic adultery
remark.

Violence. New York, New
York is the only musical in history in
which the leading guy (De Niro as
Jummy Doyle) is moreobsessed with
brawls than with keeping his girl.
But else would you expect from a
director who gives youboxers’ noses
being broken in slow motion, cheeks
being bitten, bloody mass murder in
a brothel and the most excruciating
depiction of thecrucifixion ever shot.
Often the violence involves De Niro,
who seems to have evolved into a
maniacal alter-ego for Scorsese,
appearing in seven of his films.

Discussing the climactic
bloodletting in Taxi Driver, Scorsese
explained: “The idea was to create a
violent catharsis, so people would
find themselves saying, “yes, kill’;
and thenafterwards realize, my God,
no’ — like some strange California
therapy session. Thatwas theinstinct
I went with, but it’s scary to hear
what happens with the audience.”

Loudhouse
Puzzling

Iam puzzled. Why dollike
this band? My first impression is
only confirmed by further listening:
Detroit-based Loudhouse seems
pretty simple.

For Crying Out Loud
Loudhouse

Virgin Records

by Karen Rempel

 

Musically, different
influences are apparent (Jane’s
Addiction, Van Halen, The
Raspberries, The Cult, The Doors).
In places Loudhouse’s album, “For
Crying Out Loud,” sounds like a
jacked-up pornosoundtrack. Inmost
songs there’s an early-’70s heavy-
rock feel — very basic. Yet, although
I want to dismiss Loudhouse as

unoriginal, there’s.a strange ap ppeal
to “For Crying Out Loud.

Afteronly onelisten theself-
named “Loudhouse” was running
through my brain. On the second
listen I found myself singing along to
“T.V. Babies” and “My Dad's Bigger
Than Your Dad.” “King Among the
Ruins” is a moving ballad with
haunting, Hendrix-like guitar riffs.
And their version of “Smoke on the
Water,” while bearing little musical
resemblance to the original, is
entertaining nonetheless (it’s
reminiscent of the kind of psycho-
funk played at the Luv Affair).

“For g Out Loud” isa
promising debut album; I'll be
interested to see what Loudhouse
(lose the name) comes up with next.

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